Ed Forbes reports the latest on efforts to find out more about New York terror attack suspect Sayfullo Saipov's ties to New Jersey, including a residence in Paterson.
Ed Forbes/NorthJersey.com

The FBI conducted a search Wednesday of the home of Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the Manhattan terror attack Tuesday afternoon in lower Manhattan. Saipov lives on Genessee Avenue in Paterson.(Photo: Tariq Zehawi/NorthJersey.com)

On Wednesday federal prosecutors said Saipov rented a truck from a Home Depot store in Passaic on Oct. 22 to conduct a test run of the deadly terror attack he is accused of committing in lower Manhattan on Tuesday.

Eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured when Saipov allegedly drove a pickup he rented from the same Home Depot store onto a crowded bike path, killing eight and injuring a dozen others in the deadliest terrorist attack in New York City since 9/11.

"I do work for Home Depot," Batista said. "It's kind of shocking. My neighbor. I work for Home Depot. It's crazy."

Prosecutors said the attack was the culmination of a year of careful planning. Saipov's neighbors and associates said it occurred after sudden changes in Saipov's life as he drifted deeper into a radical ideology of violence.

An army of federal investigators and journalists descended on Saipov's relatives and friends in the aftermath of the attack, teasing apart the documents that tell the story of his life here in the United States. What emerged was an image of an optimistic young man, primed to seize the opportunities of this country, turned sour after a series of disappointments, and a vain man more concerned with outward displays of piety than the rigors of a deeply religious life.

In announcing federal charges against Saipov on Wednesday evening, Joon H. Kim, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, described him as being "consumed by hate and a twisted ideology."

Saipov had recently moved from Florida to New Jersey, according to neighbors and public records. He lived a peripatetic life, driving trucks and racking up traffic tickets across the country while moving his young family to multiple addresses in New Jersey, Ohio and Florida, according to law enforcement officials and the scant public records that document his life.

A 2015 mugshot of Sayfullo Saipov.(Photo: Courtesy of the St. Charles County (Missouri) Department of Corrections)

He seemed to develop few close friendships while on the move, and people who encountered him in Paterson and the other places he has lived gave radically different descriptions of his behavior and character.

Federal law enforcement officials were aware of Saipov before Tuesday. Authorities said that he had not been under investigation prior to the attack but that he had some connections to people who were subjects of a terrorism investigation.

Saipov, who had been in in custody at Bellevue Hospital in New York, appeared in federal court in a wheelchair Wednesday afternoon and was ordered detained.

'He was really calm'

Soon after he moved to Paterson this summer, Saipov’s neighbors saw him as a calming presence. Carlos Garcia, Angel’s brother, recalled riding a loud dirtbike up and down the street past Saipov, who was standing next to a friend.

Saipov’s friend grew angry about the noise, Garcia said. Saipov did not. Instead, he gently asked Garcia to quiet down the racket because his children were asleep inside his apartment.

“His friend got an attitude. So I gave him one back. But him, he's an all right guy,” Garcia said of Saipov. “He's not a bad guy. Not that I know of, until this happened."

On Tuesday afternoon Saipov drove his family minivan to a Home Depot in Passaic, where he rented the pickup truck, according to law enforcement officials. From there, he drove north to the George Washington Bridge and then south to Houston Street in Manhattan, turning onto a path reserved for cyclists and pedestrians. Then he sped up, striking dozens of people.

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“This is a very painful day in our city,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “This was an act of terror, a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians.”

Saipov’s life in America started on a radically different track. When he arrived in the United States with a green card in 2010, he landed in Symmes Township, Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb, as a young man focused on creating a prosperous life in his new home.

“He was really calm,” Dilnoza Abdusamatova, who was a teenager when Saipov stayed for two weeks at her parents’ townhouse, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “He always used to work. He wouldn’t go to parties or anything. He only used to come home and rest and go back to work.”

His work was trucking, a common career choice among young Uzbeki men hoping to build prosperous lives in America, said Bek Aripov, owner of Uzbek Transport Express, a trucking company headquartered near Abdusamatova’s Ohio home that once employed Abdusamatova’s parents.

“I know that family. I was shocked” by the turn in Saipov’s live, Aripov said. “It’s very common for people from Uzbekistan to come here and start out driving trucks. They can come here, work hard, and make $100,000 a year, which is good money.”

Life as a trucker has its perils, however. Between 2011 and 2015, Saipov racked up at least five traffic tickets in three states, one each in Maryland and Iowa, and two in different counties in Missouri, one of which issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear in court.

The tickets cost Saipov his insurance on his truck, which caused companies to stop hiring him, Mirrakhmat Muminov, a fellow truck driver who became friends with Saipov in Ohio, told The Associated Press. And after Saipov moved to New Jersey, his truck’s engine blew up, The AP reported.

The end of Saipov’s trucking career “probably hurt him more than anything,” said Muminov, who described Saipov as “not happy with his life” and getting into arguments with his friends and family.

Saipov also worked as a driver for Uber while he lived in New Jersey, law enforcement officials said. He made more than 1,400 Uber drives, the company said in a statement.

Associates see a darker side

Saipov’s personal life appeared to be similarly chaotic. From Cincinnati he moved across the country, public documents show, bouncing to apartments in Stow, Ohio, near Akron, before moving to two different addresses in Tampa, Fla., and also moving back and forth to Paterson.

In 2015, he applied for a driver’s license in Florida. On his application, obtained from the state's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, he listed his home address as an apartment in Florida, a phone number from the Cincinnati area and a previous driver’s license number from Ohio, where had been living near Akron.

When he arrived in Paterson, Saipov’s vehicle still had license plates from Florida, his neighbors said, and he made regular trips back to Florida.

Through all these changes, Saipov could be cheerful. Kobiljon Matkarov, an Ohio resident and truck driver who was friends with Saipov on Facebook, told The Tampa Bay Times that his children enjoyed playing with Saipov when the two men lived close to each other in Florida. Matkarov and Saipov passed the time making small talk about their work and families, Matkarov said.

“He’s very friendly,” he told the newspaper. “He’s a very, very nice guy.”

Others saw a darker side of Saipov.

A man who once worked as a dispatcher for one of Saipov’s trucking companies, and who led a mosque in Tampa that Saipov attended, said in an interview with The New York Times that Saipov was moody.

He was often easygoing, said the man, who asked to be identified only as Abdula. But Saipov also had a short fuse, Abdula said. He had strong feelings about problems facing Muslims in America, Abdula told the newspaper, even though his own religious observance focused less on the tenets of the religion itself and more on its outward displays, such as his beard.

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A local resident reacts after placing an Argentinian soccer jersey at a makeshift memorial for the Oct. 31 terror attack victims along a bike path in New York, on Nov. 2, 2017.
Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

People take part in a vigil for those killed the day before in New York, on Nov. 1, 2017. The Council on American-Islamic Relations organized the event a day after the attack in lower Manhattan that killed eight people.
John Moore, Getty Images

Jimmy Drake holds a picture of and talks about his son Darren Drake, on Nov. 1, 2017, in New Milford, NJ. Darren, a project manager for Moody's Investors Service at the World Trade Center, was among those killed in the bike path attack in New York.
Ed Murray, NJ Advance Media, via AP

New York City Police Officer Ryan Nash speaks to reporters at the Suffolk County Police Department's Fifth Precinct on Nov. 1, 2017, in Patchogue, N.Y. Nash shot the driver of a rental truck that ran down pedestrians and bicyclists in a suspected terrorism attack in New York City on Oct. 31, 2017.
Frank Eltman, AP

This Oct. 28, 2017 photo provided by Cecilia Piedrabuena shows from left to right; Hernan Ferruchi, Alejandro Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij, Ivan Brajckovic, Juan Pablo Trevisan, Hernan Mendoza, Diego Angelini and Ariel Benvenuto, gather for a group photo before their trip to New York City, at the airport in Rosario, in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. Mendoza, Angelini, Pagnucco, Erlij and Ferruchi were killed in the bike path attack near the World Trade Center. They were part of a group of friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation with a trip to New York.
Cecilia Piedrabuena via AP

The Argentine and U.S. flags are lowered to half-staff on the facade of the New York Stock Exchange, Nov. 1, 2017. The Argentine foreign ministry has identified the five of its citizens killed in the bike path attack near the World Trade Center on Tuesday.
Richard Drew, AP

A vehicle is surrounded by a police perimeter in the parking lot of a Home Depot store, Oct. 31, 2017, in Passaic, N.J. Police investigating a rented Home Depot truck's deadly rampage down a bike path near New York's World Trade Center surrounded the white Toyota minivan with Florida plates parked in a New Jersey Home Depot lot.
Julio Cortez, AP

As ordered by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the spire of One World Trade Center is illuminated in red, white and blue following the deadly rampage down a bike path not far from the building, Oct. 31, 2017, in New York.
Craig Ruttle, AP

Authorities stand near a damaged Home Depot truck after a motorist drove onto a bike path near the World Trade Center memorial, striking and killing several people on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York.
Craig Ruttle, AP

This image made from a video provided by Tawhid Kabir shows the suspect in a deadly attack running across the street with a fake gun in each hand on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York. The man mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path near the World Trade Center memorial on Tuesday, before he was shot in the abdomen by police after jumping out of the truck, authorities said.
YouTube/Tawhid Kabir via AP

This undated photo provided by St. Charles County Department of Corrections via KMOV shows the Sayfullo Saipov. A man in a rented pickup truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists along a busy bike path near the World Trade Center memorial on Oct. 31, 2017, killing several. Officials who were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity identified the attacker Saipov.
St. Charles County Department of Corrections via AP

Members of the Paterson police department block of Genesse Ave. near Getty Ave. where it is believed that terrorist Sayfullo Saipov 29, lived in an apartment building. Saipov plowed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 11.
Amy Newman, Northjersey.com via USA TODAY Network

Police investigate the scene at a bike path in lower Manhattan after a motorist drove onto the path near the World Trade Center memorial, striking and killing several people on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York.
Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY

Emergency personnel transport a man on a stretcher after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York.
Mark Lennihan, AP

David Yagerman hugs his daughter, Amanda Yagerman, 15, after reuniting with her early Tuesday evening in New York. Yagerman, a student at Stuvesant High School, said the truck attack occurred near the school entrance.
Wexler, Kevin, NorthJersey.com

Investigators inspect a truck following a shooting incident in New York on Oct. 31, 2017. Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York on Tuesday when a suspect plowed a vehicle into a bike and pedestrian path in Lower Manhattan, and struck another vehicle on Halloween, police said. A suspect exited the vehicle holding up fake guns, before being shot by police and taken into custody, officers said. The motive was not immediately apparent.
Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images

Authorities respond near a damaged school bus on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York. A motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Tuesday police and witnesses said.
Mark Lennihan, AP

Emergency personnel carry a man into an ambulance after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York.
Mark Lennihan, AP

New York Police Department officers gather near the scene after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York.
Mark Lennihan, AP

In this photo provided by the New York City Police Department, officers respond to a report of gunfire along West Street near the pedestrian bridge at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan in New York on Oct. 31, 2017.
Martin Speechley, New York City Police Department via AP

Police officers arrive at the scene following a shooting incident in New York on Oct. 31, 2017. Multiple people were hurt in downtown Manhattan, US media reported after police confirmed that they were responding to reports of a shooting.
Police said they had mobilized to the scene in Lower Manhattan and that one person was in custody, giving no further details.
Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images

In this still image taken from video, emergency personnel respond to victims after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people Oct. 31, 2017 in New York.
AP

NYPD officers respond after reports of multiple people hit by a truck after it plowed through a bike path in lower Manhattan on Oct. 31, 2017 in New York City. According to reports up to six people may have been killed.
Kena Betancur, Getty Images

Emergency personal respond after reports of multiple people hit by a truck after it plowed through a bike path in lower Manhattan on Oct. 31, 2017 in New York City. According to reports up to six people may have been killed.
Kena Betancur, Getty Images

Authorities respond near a damaged school bus on Oct. 31, 2017, in New York. A motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Tuesday police and witnesses said.
Bebeto Matthews, AP

Police direct people away from the scene after reports of multiple people injured after a truck plowed through a bike path in lower Manhattan on October 31, 2017 in New York City.
Andy Kiss, Getty Images